Helmet for my Pillow
Robert Leckie  published in the late 1950s
Found: I have become slightly addicted to war memoirs..recommended on Amazon.
Progressed: Finished.

The last paragraph of the book. the names Chuckler, Big Picture, Chicken etc are the nicknames of his comrades--' the other sign' is a mushroom cloud.

"And now to that Victim whose Sign rose above the world two thousand years ago, to be menaced now by that other sign now rising. i say a prayer of contrition. I, whom you have seen as irreverent and irreligious, now pray in the name of Chuckler and Hoosier, and Runner, in the name of Smoothface, Gentleman, Amish and Oakstump, Ivy League and Big Picture, in the name of all those who suffered in the jungles and on the beaches, from Anzio to Normandy--and in the name of the immolated, of Texan , Rutherford, Chicken, Loudmouth, of the Artist and White- man, Souvenirs and Racehorse, Dreadnought and Commando--of all these and the others, dear father forgive us for that awful cloud."